Find My Device is probably one of the most valuable Android tools and it's completely free. This app lets you ping the location of your device in the event that it becomes lost or stolen. It's compatible with phones, tablets, and even Wear OS smartwatches.

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Jul 26, 2017  These Android development tools speed up development and help create better apps with debugging, performance monitoring, a Git visualizer, emulators, and more. Top 30 Android Development Tools. Users looking for a cross-platform app development tool that is also capable of developing applications for Raspberry Pi, iOS, and web apps. Not for: Users looking for a simple, DIY drag and drop app development software, or a tool that will allow them to develop Android apps.

You can also lock your device, erase it, and show a message on your device to plead to the finder to return it. It's a free service by Google and that makes it so nice. Those who want something a little more powerful should check out Cerberus. It does a lot of the same stuff, but also has more features if you don't mind paying for them. GlassWire is an excellent utility app for many reasons. It shows when apps use data. This is useful for a lot of things.

For starters, those on tiered data plans can see exactly where their data went. Additionally, it's useful for security purposes because you can see when apps send data back to their home servers. You also get customizable data alerts, a real-time graph showing your data usage, and other customization features. It's perfect for those with tiered data plans and also the security conscious. The premium version is also dirt cheap at $0.99. The official Google app is one of the most powerful tools on mobile.

It can do almost anything. You can ask Google Assistant for the weather or to control your smart lighting setup. Google Now provides a feed of relevant info just for your (although that does take time to customize). We all already know the benefits of Google Search.

Google was nice enough to incorporate all of that functionality in a single app and that really makes it difficult not to recommend it to basically everybody. This is an excellent app. IFTTT is another excellent Android tool. This app allows you to make connections between other apps. For instance, you can have the app upload a photo to your Dropbox after you share it on Instagram. That is just scratching the surface of all the things it can do. There are tons of apps that have IFTTT integration built-in and you can even use to do things like control your smart lights.

There are thousands of recipes out there and you can find them by Google searching if you want to see them. Also, don’t forget about the upcoming Microsoft Flow and other, similar utility apps. ProtonVPN is one of the more engaging VPN apps on Android. It has a totally free, unlimited VPN option and that makes it really easy to incorporate into your daily life without much of a hassle.

The app includes a strict no-logging policy as well as encryption for your security. Those who pay the $4 per month tier get higher speeds and support for two devices. The number of features and devices go up from there. There are a lot of good VPNs.

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However, this is one of the few with its level of security and then also a totally free option. We would recommend this one all day. Solid Explorer is probably the best file manager on Android right now. It supports the basic stuff, including archiving and un-archiving files, checking your storage folders, moving stuff around, and more. It also has more advanced features like cloud storage support, support for various types of web servers (think FTP and others), and support for root users. There are other file managers out there, but Solid Explorer looks and works great. It hits that sweet spot between functional and good looking.